The moving day saga – Part 2. Mourning the loss of breastmilk.

Continuing on from my last post about moving house.  As you know it was a stressful/frustrating/want to stab myself (or anyone who ventured close enough) in the eye kinda day.

You would think that once we finally finished off all we were going to do that day and did the final drive to the new place to relax and get take-out, all the feelings of hate and murder would just wash away.  Well, no, no they did not.  My friends, things took a turn for the worse.  You didn’t think they could get any worse?  Neither did I, but worse they did get.

 

During the afternoon of frustration, I tried to nurse T a few times, but he decided that he didn’t feel like it and was more happy to just bite my poor tender pregnant nipple.  And my shoulder, fingers, toes, leg, nose – anything he could sink his teeth into really.  Teething is such a joy.  This was not unusual, as he had been pretty bitey of late, but usually he would reserve using his chompers until the END of the boob feed.

I didn’t think too much of it, after all there was a lot going on to distract him with all the moving furniture and the non-cleaning and the sitting on the floor in an empty room trapped by oven cleaner fumes wafting down the hall way (if you don’t get it, see this post).  I would want to bite the person responsible for holding me captive in such a predicament too, if I was a baby .

 

We got ‘home’ finally with our Red Rooster, woofed down some tucker, pulled up the port-a-cot, gave T a quick bath and then settled in for his bed time boob.  BITE.  Ouch.  Why, Theo?  Why?  Surely you must want some boob, you haven’t had any for most of the day, and surely you must want to go to sleep so I can drop dead from exhaustion.

Try again.  BITE.  Wait for a few mins and try again.  BITE.  WTF?!

‘D, take the baby,’ says I, before running off to have a sob on the bed.  Breathe in.  Breathe out.  OK, composed now.

This time, I take T to feed in the quiet of his bedroom instead of the lounge room.  There is no way he can resist yummy boob in his quiet bedroom, right?  BITE.  BITE.  BITE

 

Dump T on D and run off to wail, howl and scream into my pillow.  Everything and everything crashing down all around.  All the moving stress, all the frustration, all the throbbing bite marks exploding in my heart.  D tentatively pokes his head into the bedroom and asks what he can do.  ‘I don’t knowwwwwwww waaa waaa waaaa!’  I sob.  He asks if I want him to defrost some milk from the freezer.  ‘I don’t knowwwwwwwww waaa waaa yes, no , I don’t care, whatever, ok.’  I admit defeat, thinking that there is no way it is going to work anyway.  T fucking hates bottles.  Mother-in-law has to give him my milk from a spoon when she babysits.

 

He guzzled it down.  FROM A BOTTLE PEEPS!  100mL in 2 seconds flat and was looking for more.  I defrosted another 100mL bag which he also guzzled and then another 90mL which he drank and was content enough to go to bed.  Damn, the kid was starving.

After this I sank into the couch and died a little inside.  I fetched my pump and sat down to express all the milk I had stoed up in my boobs during the afternoon and evening.  20mL.  20 measly little mLs.  No bloody milk my friends.  I guess that is what he was trying to tell me with all the biting.

I tried to give him boob in the morning.  BITE.  Crap.  Last bag of breastmilk.  No more milk.  I pumped and got a little and went out to do what every nursing mother doesn’t want to do – buy formula.  How freaking hard is it to choose which formula to buy?  Do I buy the pro or the gold or the pro gold or the plus or the plus gold or the pro plus?

 

Anyway, as it turned out T took to the bottle and formula with gusto.  The pregnancy had officially dried me up and my milk had begun to turn back to colostrum.  I knew that it had been diminishing somewhat but wasn’t expecting it to dry up completely so soon.  I think the stress of the move finished me off.  T had been a bit of a miserable grump for a few weeks prior and we put it down to teething.  I actually now think that I was starving the poor little dude.  Once he was getting a nice full belly again he chilled out and became so much more content and happy.

Once I saw the change in him and realised that it was time to move on and he needed the extra nutrition that I could no longer give him, I made peace with the change.  My little doodle is thriving on formula now as he was once thriving on breastmilk.  I did the best I could for him and I am proud of myself.

As an added bonus, I have discovered that there is a certain freedom that comes with being a formula feeding mum.  My boobs are mine again until LSP arrives and therefore, so am I.  If I need to go out for a bit and leave T with D, I don’t need to race home for his next feed.  Hell, I can even sleep in and D can do the morning shift.  He have settled into a nice system – you know I love systems – I get up with T weekdays and D gets a little extra rest in before work, you know, because he works soooo hard (insert sarcasm – ummmm, I work too) but on the weekends we both get a big sleep in.  He gets Saturday sleep in and I get Sunday sleep in.  Works for me!

I don’t have any photos of T on the bottle so I will leave you with this instead.

It’s an oldie but a goodie.  T after a few too many boobs.

A self indulgent ‘look at me’ post. Just because I can. This is also a lot about poo.

I started feeling some LSP movement a few weeks ago, I even saw some bumps and nudges from the outside!  It was always on the right side of the belly button, whereas with T his early movement was always on the left, lower down.

Yesterday I had the most horrific upset tummy.  Sore to touch, total constipation pains making me feel sicky sicky gross gross.  I needed to poo or vom.  Preferably poo but I would have been happy to vom too.  Anything to relieve the pressure.  Neither happened.  This made for a very sad me and a very cranky teacher for the poor unsuspecting children I had inmy classes yesterday, one of which was K.

Anyway, as with anything tummy related when you are pregnant, even when your logical head knows full well that it is just your back passage gone on strike, little seeds of worry plant themselves in your mind.  What if something has happened to my baby and now I need to poo her out?  Did I really think such a stupid thing?  No.  Yes.  Maybe.

It was around the third unsuccessful trip to the toilet that resulted in neither a poo or a vom that I began to realise that I had not felt LSP move for a while.  How long?  I have no idea.  Could have been days.  Paranoia tries to invade my mind while rational thought tries to make me remain calm.  I somehow managed to get through the day on a see-saw ride between the two.

This is what my rational mind told me – LSP has just moved into a different position.  She is facing your back now so you can’t feel her.  Your enormously full large intestine has wrapped itself around your uterus so your poo is masking the movements.  OK, my crazy mind told me that.

I tried like hell to poo all night to no avail and went to bed in pain.  I jiggled and wriggled my belly and pushed and prodded and concentrated really, really hard, but I don’t think I felt any movement.  I eventually fell asleep because logical mind told me I was being neurotic.

This morning I pooed.

Tummy still hurts, there is more to come but I haven’t had much luck there yet although some pressure has definitely been relieved.  I also farted plenty and that was awesome.  Once T went down for his morning nap, I drank a cold drink and laid on the couch determined to feel this baby or run screaming to the nearest hospital.

I felt LSP move, on the LEFT!  Sneaky baby.  Also, not so jabby, but more rolling type movemnts so I think she has just moved around to a different spot and is playing with my back bits now.  Rational mind was right!

 

I still need a good shit though.

 

But in honour of a good poo and the fact that there is still a baby in my belly and I didn’t have to push it out of my butt, I am going to share my first bump photo of this pregnancy.

 

 

 

The bump does fluctuate a bit daily, and I had just eaten this –

Zucchini Slice, Chicken Balls and Pork Buns by the amazing Cassie x Yummy! Yes that is my drink in the foreground. No it is not alcoholic.

And this –

Cake Pops by Cassie’s mum, Gail and Chocolate and Raspberry Puddings by Hollie. So Good. My arse thanks you.

at a Melbourne Cup Luncheon hosted by my bff Cassie, but I think it is safe to say that the bump is mostly LSP and a little bit chocolate.

T had fun too.

Did you notice this?

Feta, Watermelon and Kiwi Salad – found on Pinterest.

This was my contribution to the luncheon.  I found it here – at Studiox3 and it was awesome!  Thanks for the inspiration!!!  I kind of failed with cutting the cubes into exact sizes but generally it workout out fine.

 

Thank you for allowing me to share my poo baby.  I can’t wait to watch it grow 🙂  xxx

LSP

So now that you know the big secret, I’ll bet you are all wondering does it have a doodle or a taco?  Feels a bit weird saying taco about a baby girl, so let’s just say corn chip.  And I’ll also bet that unless you have pre-teen children, who are all about watching the crazy and ‘out there’ cartoon Adventure Time, then you are probably also wondering what the hell does LSP mean and why are we naming our unborn child this?  Please do not confuse LSP with LSD.  Baby was not conceived on an acid trip.

 

Anyone who knows me is probably aware that when I was pregnant with T, we were openly hoping he was a she.  The pang of disappointment when we saw the doodle in the ultrasound only lasted a second and was quickly replaced with joy.  I had prepared myself for the scan to reveal a boy so it wasn’t that much of a shock although I was really hoping for a surprise.  T is the bestest ever anyway and I wouldn’t swap him for a million sparkle princesses.

This time around however, I am really, really, really hoping and praying to the Flying Spaghetti Monster and anyone else who will listen that baby is a girl.  Ultimately, it doesn’t matter.  Boy, girl, alien, frog.  Whatever I have in there is my baby and I adore it.  But pleeeease be a girl!  Don’t hate me because I am hoping for one sex over another.  I’m just being honest with you.  I have 3 doodles here, for goodness sake Mumma Bear needs a little pink to share the sparkly things with!

 

At my dating scan, baby looked like nothing more than a lump with a heartbeat, and once I saw it’s heart beating away, I decided that it needed a name.  As every waking minute our big boys are either playing Minecraft (is this not the shittiest computer game ever?  How is it that boys are so obsessed with it?), complaining about being bored or watching Adventure Time on TV, I had become pretty familiar with all of the AT characters.  My favourite has to be Lumpy Space Princess – LSP.

K was overjoyed when I told him the name, he thinks LSP is hysterical, and he is right – she is.  If you haven’t seen AT or know who she is let me introduce you to her –

 

 

I thought LSP could either be a Prince or a Princess so the name would fit regardless of doodle or corn chip.

 

Fast forward a few weeks to last Tuesday when I had my 12 week NT scan.  Everything was wonderful and perfect and raindrops on roses.  LSP was super well behaved and did everything a good baby should do.  The ultrasound technician asked if we wanted to know the gender.  Gasp!  I was planning on asking her if she would care to speculate on the gender but wasn’t really prepared for to do so, as when I had the same scan with T, the tech wouldn’t even look for me!

She said she knew, and if we wanted to know she would show us.  She said at 12/13 weeks all they can say is that it is 70% accurate, but she was pretty sure anyway and also said she had never been wrong.  It would be just our shitty luck to be her first wrong guess!

 

She showed us this picture

She explained about the nub/sex bud theory. If the sex bud (the white straight bit down the business end) is flat it means princess and if it is pointing up, it means prince!

 

As you can see, the sex bud is parallel to the spine which according to the ultrasound technician means LSP is (apparently) a PRINCESS!

 

Insert Dance of Joy here.

 

That being said though, we are not counting on it being true until it is confirmed at our 20 week scan.  So not going to buy anything girl specific, or if we do, will be keeping the receipt.  I do have a soft little pink newborn jumpsuit I bought when we were trying to conceive T, and that will suffice for now.

 

Our Lumpy Space Prince/Princess –

The big reveal. Da da daaaaaa!

Hello peeps, I have missed you so!  Unless you have been living under a rock, eating ants and lichen you probably have noticed that I have been quiet on the blogosphere.  It’s hard to blog honestly when you have been keeping a secret, and keeping a secret I have!  So rather than ramble on about meaningless nothings (how is that really different from the garbage I usually write about anyway?) while attempting to hide the truth, I opted for silence.  Well, the time has come to break it…

 

T has something to tell you.

 

That’s right!  I’m pregnant!  We are going to have another baby.  4 kids.  FOUR.  Ffffoooooooouuuuuuuuuuurrrr.

 

I know what the majority of you are thinking right now.  I’m nuts.  Well that is stating the blatantly obvious, but this pregnancy came as more of a surprise to us that it has to you.  With T, we tried to conceive for a long time and struggled with the evil, horrible, torturous bitch that is infertility.  He was the miracle baby that came along just in time before we began our first IVF cycle.

T was our last baby.  We each had a child of our own, and then we had T together to complete our family.  End of.  Or so we thought.  This shock pregnancy really has occurred against all odds.  Still breastfeeding, on the PILL and with D’s lazy-ass swimmers, it is a wonder how one little super sperm was able to get through all of those barriers to claim his prize.

We were gobbsmacked.  After some crisis talks about money and how we would cope financially, excitement set in.  We are having another baby!

 

It has not been easy this time around.  First trimester pregnancy is bullshit hard with a little baby under foot.  Morning sickness sucks balls, however, listening to some of my other poor, poor friends who are also preg with me, my morning sickness has been a walk in the park in comparison.  Amy, Katherine – hats off to you.  T has been hard work in previous weeks.  So cranky and needy.  In constant need of being held and with me not being able to go out of his sight for one second I have been feeling the frustrations.  Also, the exhaustion has been killing me.  It is farking hard work growing a human!  I still can barley make it through a day and am now into the 2nd trimester.  When am I supposed to be getting my energy back?  Seriously walking dead.

We kept it to ourselves for a few weeks, but slowly the word filtered out to select friends and family until it was time to tell K and J.  I bought the ‘I’m going to be a big brother’ onesie and dressed T in it after his bath one night.  The plan was to video K and J playing with T, and once they read the onesie message they would dance a song of joy and sing for the pixies of love and happiness.  Yeah, didn’t exactly go down like that.

 

 

What I can promise you, is that after some heartfelt tears, cuddles and words of reassurance from Mum and Dad, K has come around and both boys are now thrilled about the new baby on the way.  Phew.  Dear sweet little K was concerned about me.  He was worried about how I would cope because he hates it when I am upset or stressed.  Bless his beautiful little heart.  J on the other hand, was all ‘whatever’ from the start, which means ‘I’m happy’ in J talk.

 

I am sooooo happy and excited to finally get this out!  I have so much to post about that has been backlogged from the last few weeks, which I will fill you in over the coming days.  Still struggling with tiredness, so late nights are not my friend and I am trying to avoid them as much as possible.  I am working on getting these posts out during T’s nap times on the days which I am not working.  What this means though bitches, is that I have to sacrifice one of MY nap times!  The things I do for you and my blog!

 

Peace out, from me and LSP.  That’s what we have called the baby.

 

*** What the fuck is up with my camera?  It takes the WORST videos imaginable!  And what was that weird underwater sound that happened half way through?  I’m sick of my camera, it sucks.  Apologies for the crap video experience***